LAS VEGAS — An overriding theme of CES this year is Amazon’s Alexa versus the Google Assistant, but Panasonic isn’t picking a side.
Today the electronics giant announced with Amazon and Google the integration of the tech giants’ respective digital assistants into its “skip gen infotainment” displays. A big change from some of the other connected car products that have come out of late is that the digital assistants can perform some tasks without a data connection.
Both digital assistants will be able to do things like give directions, control music, check calendars and more.
Amazon’s feature, known as Alexa Onboard, furthers the company’s goal of getting Alexa everywhere, even places without a ready internet connection.
“In addition to teaching Alexa new things, we want her to be available everywhere customers are,” Amazon Senior Vice President of Alexa Tom Taylor said at the Panasonic event.
Panasonic will be one of the first customers to integrate this new version of Alexa, but executives from both companies did not say when we might see it available for consumers.
Panasonic first unveiled its in-car infotainment systems last year at CES, a partnership with chip maker Qualcomm that runs on Android.